EPISODE 18 FINAL
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Rupert Bryce: [00:00:00] The purpose that some of those self limitations that you put on yourself serve is it keeps you safe. It keeps you safe. It keeps you okay. Problem with that is it keeps you small. It keeps you in place. It doesn't enable you to flourish or grow or thrive and move towards more aspirational goals which serve broader audiences, communities.
Rupert Bryce: And help you really grow and build a practice or build a business.
Chris Hughes: Welcome to How to Build a Profitable Nutrition Business. If you love nutrition and you love helping people and you want to be in the game long enough to keep doing that, then this is the podcast for you. Let's get into it.
Chris Hughes: If you're listening to this podcast or watching this video, there's a fair chance that you've got a bit of that entrepreneurial spirit. You've built a business, you've got a program or a model. You've put yourself out there. You've got some great ideas about how it could be a success. But quite often, You're holding yourself back, you've got some limiting beliefs and you're [00:01:00] kind of getting in your own way.
Chris Hughes: Well, today our guest is Rupert Bryce, a performance psychologist with his business performance strategies. Rupert works with business owners, startups, executives to perform better and reach that next level. I've been fortunate to work one on one with Rupert and I cannot recommend him highly enough.
Chris Hughes: Let's get into it. Welcome back to another episode of How to Build a Profitable Nutrition Business today. I am super excited to have performance psychologist, Rupert Bryce. Come on now. I've been really fortunate. Thanks to Tara diversity and the, and the yep group up there in Cairns. Um, That I got to work with Rupert quite closely for about 10 or 12 weeks back in 2022 as part of their sort of launching incubator program.
Chris Hughes: And it was such a great insight for me. And then again, recently Rupert was one of the keynote speakers at the Dietitians Australia conference. Now performance psychology. It's such a critical aspect and it was something that I certainly overlooked when we built Mealsy. But I think about this a lot that so many people [00:02:00] have million dollar ideas, but it's that execution of that idea that actually is going to be the telltale sign as to whether you can actually make anything of it.
Chris Hughes: And so Rupert is an absolute wealth of knowledge and has so many great skills and I'm pumped to actually talk to Rupert today and he will give so much gold wisdom here for people to really. Think about themselves and think about how they can execute better on their ideas and just perform better in their careers.
Chris Hughes: So, Rupert, thank you so much for coming on. You're a very busy man, so your time is really valuable. I appreciate it. If you could give everyone a little bit of background about where you've been. Sort of come from and what your business does, that would be amazing.
Rupert Bryce: Yeah. Delight. Thank you, Chris. And it's nice to reconnect with you.
Rupert Bryce: We did a bit of one on one coaching work a while back and certainly really keen to talk with your audience about how they can grow their businesses, but mostly through growing themselves. So by way of intro. I, a long time [00:03:00] ago, started an undergrad degree at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City at a high school and did psychology there and was really interested in sports psych because I was a swimmer, I had a swimming scholarship to that university as an Australian traveling to America, it was a real sort of cultural experience and sporting experience and great academic experience, but it got me really interested in what was the difference between Those that perform really well in sport, trained well, but didn't perform well or performed amazingly, but didn't do much training.
Rupert Bryce: And there's the psychological differences really came down to belief and confidence and those sorts of things that started to grab me. So we had a sports psych there and I developed a relationship with him and some of the other team sports psychs that we had. But when I came back to Australia, I ended up doing a master's in organizational psychology and combined some of the performance aspects from sport into organizations.
Rupert Bryce: And that [00:04:00] was my start into the world of leadership development, executive coaching, and really I call myself a coach. Performance psychologist, which really helps people get the very best out of themselves in settings where they want to grow, they want to develop, they want to lead better in those sorts of settings, mostly in workplaces, but also there's lots of implications for life as well.
Chris Hughes: Yeah, so I had no idea you were a swimmer. I was just going to take a step back. What was the start like? Well, you had a good lead off, but you didn't have to be going over to the stage.
Rupert Bryce: Ah, well, I've started swimming again, so I'm better as an adult than I was back then. Which is nice, getting back in the pool after being out for 30 years, and that's a lovely thing to do.
Rupert Bryce: Getting back into squad swimming, but back then Probably top 20 or 30 in the world type of thing, top, top three or five swimmer in Australia back then. But I missed a team. The reason why I got recruited, I just got a phone call out of nowhere from a person I did not know. Ring, ring. Hey, do you want to come to [00:05:00] Utah?
Rupert Bryce: I'm like, where's Utah? Sounds good. And I had a couple of, I had a couple of phone calls, but they offered me a full sporting scholarship, which was a really generous thing back then. And it was, this was in the nineties and I just jumped at it. When I came third at the Commonwealth Games trials in 1990.
Rupert Bryce: And so I missed out on the team. I went, Oh, what am I going to do? There's not much going on between now and the Olympics, which was years away. And yeah, just had a go and loved it. And I just love that entrepreneurial spirit. That's the, um, The business spirit that they've got all throughout the United States.
Rupert Bryce: So that's part of why I combined psychology with business. So anyway, that's a bit about my swimming background, but that's a big part of what got me into performance psychology was this combination of things and was more interested in applying that in work settings as an executive coach than with sporting teams or sporting individuals.
Rupert Bryce: I certainly work with a few athletes. Now, but I [00:06:00] work with sort of doctors, athletes, individuals, people doing presentations or high performance or high pressure settings.
Chris Hughes: Yeah, there's such an overlap in that professional sport world to the business world, isn't there? I actually remember, I'm a bit of a rugby league fanatic and Tim Jeans, who was coaching the Cowboys and got sacked and went to the Tigers.
Chris Hughes: He'd done a sports psych degree knowing that he said that all the athletes are fairly similar, but it's mentally how they prepare, how a coach can prepare them for performing. And it's very much the same in the business world, isn't it? It's most people have a lot of the tools at their disposal, but it's mentally, they're holding themselves back in so many ways.
Chris Hughes: Would I be right in saying that?
Rupert Bryce: Oh, absolutely. The closer I get to the top, I don't just work with CEOs. I work with lots of people at lots of ranges and widths. But as I do get a bit older, some of my clients getting older and they're getting promoted and they're getting closer to the C suite or if not at the top, the variation there is all about belief and [00:07:00] confidence.
Rupert Bryce: It's not about the company and the cash flow and the capacity or the, even the knowledge or the skills. It's more about the, how do you internalize that and what helps and what hinders. It's your belief and things like doubt or imposter or worry or anxiety start to come into the rare air of those pressured roles where you've got boards or executives expecting things, you've got teams that rely on you, you've got customers that need you.
Rupert Bryce: Or external stakeholders. So there are unique pressures as you climb the ladder in workplaces. And what separates people is really about their confidence in their belief. And that's sort of part of what we'll talk about is what is that variation? What do you need to know about that? And what, what can you do?
Chris Hughes: Yeah, go on because that's exactly what I want to hear about because the thing is the people at the top and you just think they've got it all together. You see these people succeeding, but obviously everyone struggles with it right from the bottom to the top. It's [00:08:00] just those at the top, I'm guessing, have been able to work in that space or work on themselves a little bit more.
Rupert Bryce: Yeah, that's one of the big variations. Again, one of the measurable variations for you to get there and to sustain something which is high performance. You need to have a baseline of self awareness and that starts with not just. What do I do? What am I like? In workplaces we do personality profiling or help people understand themselves from a values perspective, what's important to them.
Rupert Bryce: But the big shift is that transfer into insight. Why do I tend to do what I do? What's important to me? And why do I do what I do? That's really critical, is the movement from awareness to insight really unlocks that capacity to change, to adapt, to improve, to perform. That's a simple model that I've got that I, that is the baseline of what's going to help you succeed.
Rupert Bryce: It's getting to know yourself, not just what you do, [00:09:00] but why do you do what you do. And that might mean things you do well or things that really get in your way. So knowing why. You might be stepping on your own toes, why you might lose confidence, why you're not be able to land messages in front of certain audiences.
Rupert Bryce: That's insight, that which is inside of you. We dig down into your, what I call the underberg, part of your iceberg, the stuff below the surface of the water, and check Beliefs and assumptions and emotions and thinking stuff that people can't see that, that once you unpack that with a professional, with a coach, you get a lot deeper understanding of what drives you, what hinders, what helps, what propels you toward your chosen goals and values.
Chris Hughes: Yeah, your keynote speech, your keynote presentation at the DA24 conference, I found myself just sitting there asking myself so many questions and I mean, I'd worked with you two years [00:10:00] previously and we were at a different stage of our business back then and you helped me phenomenally just to, that stress of being a startup and it was the tools you gave me that really helped me just.
Chris Hughes: It didn't solve my problems. It helped me tackle the problems, how I actually approach them. And then, so again, I was hearing you talk at the DA conference and I was just sitting there asking me so many questions, thinking about my Underberg. And it was such a, it was such a really useful model that you've built.
Chris Hughes: If you're happy to talk us through some of that, cause I think a lot of the listeners will get a lot out of, obviously you don't have to give us the full foundation that step wise, asking yourself questions and working through. Cause in, in our industry, I find there's a real. Imposter syndrome fear.
Chris Hughes: There's a lot that goes on and there's a real, particularly in the dietetic space, about charging their worth. They tend to undersell and I've been guilty of that myself. And it's, no one wants to stick their neck out and really say this is what I'm worth.
Rupert Bryce: Mmm. Yeah. [00:11:00] Imposter and doubt are subsets. of things that are self limiting.
Rupert Bryce: And that was part of what I mentioned at that DA Prezo. And that was a great Prezo. And such a beautiful audience to talk to. They are a helping profession and they help too much. They give up so much of themselves. And we all, when you're that open to the world when you're that caring and kind, but also when you're professional, you work hard to ensure you're doing the very best you can by your audiences and your stakeholders.
Rupert Bryce: But as caring professionals, you just tend to give up too much of yourself. There's too Much that you give away and you, and the balance doesn't quite come back in terms of the sort of the expenditure and renewal cycle tends to get a bit out of whack. And so we start with the body and the energy and we work up from there all the way through to the sort of the thoughts and the skills and the [00:12:00] tools.
Rupert Bryce: But I do think a lot about that audience, how thoughtful they are with their clients and the work that they do. And so when you're giving up too much of yourself, Which help examine what purpose does that serve? Why is it that you tend to not believe in yourself or not be able to charge appropriately or what sort of gets in the way?
Rupert Bryce: And there's something a bit counter, counter intuitive there. Which is that those self limitations serve a purpose. As you dig down from the things that are below the surface, down into that dark, under the surface water that's hard, harder for you to see, let alone impossible for others to see, we start to look down into there's an assumption there, or even a belief there, that will, that, that serves a purpose.
Rupert Bryce: And it doesn't serve any purpose. I a noble purpose. It doesn't serve a big picture community purpose. It just serves a little bit more of a [00:13:00] temporary fleeting, almost fear driven or survival level purpose, which is for me to feel worthwhile. I have to or for me to be okay. I should or there's no way I could do that.
Rupert Bryce: Or I can't charge that because dot dot dot. And there's these stories that we start to tell ourselves, which. Yeah. Keep us safe and keep us protected and keep us okay. But to do something with a little bit of drive or ambition or aspiration, sometimes you've got to dig into that and go, what is that? What purpose does that serve?
Rupert Bryce: And typically the purpose that some of those self limitations that you put on yourself serve is it keeps you safe. It keeps you safe. It keeps you okay. Problem with that is it keeps you small. It keeps you in place. It doesn't enable you to flourish or grow or thrive and move towards more aspirational goals, which serve broader audiences, communities, and help you really grow and build a practice or build a business.
Rupert Bryce: So they're very [00:14:00] temporary and fleeting, and they are connected into our sort of survival mechanisms, right? The sort of fight, flight, freeze. You just get stuck.
Chris Hughes: So what would you suggest? So, cause as you, the stories we tell ourselves, as you were saying, I can see how that can be like a self. Preservation or a protective mechanism because it's I do this because or I don't charge because would you suggest that you that insight into asking yourself those questions?
Chris Hughes: Okay, I'm thinking I need to write my stories down. What am I telling myself? Then how can you flip the script? Like, how can you go to that bigger picture thinking
Rupert Bryce: a little bit of guidance? It can be lots of different things. Of course, being a coach, I would say, talk to someone about it. Okay. Or as a registered psychologist, have a chat to someone about it and start pushing down into the thoughts, the emotions, the assumptions, the belief, even the identity that you hold that you hang on to that doesn't [00:15:00] really serve those longer term, more purposeful goals.
Rupert Bryce: So you dig down and the other direction to go and examine what is that, is where does it come from? And then go back, look back in time and start thinking about, are these my thoughts? or thought patterns. Much easier to spot a thought pattern than is a thought, as you probably know. We've got tens and tens of 60, 000 thoughts a day.
Rupert Bryce: How do you spot a thought? You can't, but we can start to look at thought patterns, right? From where do they, what are they in that underberg? at the moment, and also where do they come from? So you look down and you look back, you look back into history. Are they my thoughts? Are they things that I've heard?
Rupert Bryce: Are they things that people have told me? Or how have I inherited these stories? Right back to your childhood. So I ask people, with some guidance and some thought, to examine the formative experiences in their life. To just think about, how did they grow up? Where did those scripts or that internal dialogue that I've got come [00:16:00] from?
Rupert Bryce: And you can start to see some things which They're really not yours. They're societal things, they're community things, they're family things. And a big percentage of our internal dialogue is just assumed, and it's inherited, and we just internalize it, and it can really limit us. So for us to be really self authored in terms of the future direction of where we want to take the business or even ourselves, We're going to start to look backward a little bit, and that's a bit therapeutic, and it can be cathartic, needs a little bit of guidance, but we also need to look down as well.
Rupert Bryce: So when you've looked back a little bit, and you've looked down a bit, you can then start to look up and out. So the opposite of those directions are future. So if you go into the past, you can examine that. The past and where those scripts come from, or where that internal dialogue comes from. And then you can start projecting out into the future in terms of who do I want to be?
Rupert Bryce: And some of those [00:17:00] questions we, that I posed at the DA conference, I remember, were things like, who am I now? Who am I yet to become? And when you start to ask those questions, It's about you letting go of the things that are self limiting and starting to look out into the future and up into the big picture of what's possible for me.
Chris Hughes: Yeah.
Rupert Bryce: There's a couple of things to help you unpack and it's really just the start point of what do we do about it. But if you don't know that there are things that you've inherited or you believe or you assume, you'll just drag them along with you and they'll really limit you. And they are self limiting beliefs.
Rupert Bryce: Those sorts of things.
Chris Hughes: Yeah. I'm thinking like, like for the dietetics space, there could even be industry traditions. It could be, this is how it's always been done. Who am I to do it differently? So asking, I like the idea of that, those thought patterns is where is it coming from? I struggle with that step of, I know where I want to be, [00:18:00] but it's still somehow letting go of the past.
Chris Hughes: Yeah.
Rupert Bryce: Until it actually serves a purpose. Yeah, yeah. You don't let it go. It hangs around. It keeps you safe. It keeps you small. It keeps you there. When you talk to people that want to grow their businesses, they know they don't want to be there. They know they don't want to be stuck.
Chris Hughes: They
Rupert Bryce: know they don't want to self limit.
Rupert Bryce: But until you've examined that, it'll stay there. Because it moves from a thought into something quite hardwired in our brain. We could talk a lot about brain science, but that It gets embedded in these sort of neural pathways, and it's a shortcut for us, and we just, those beliefs are there. We think they're a shortcut, but they're just a shortcut to self limitation.
Rupert Bryce: They're not a shortcut to success and growth. And so that some of the things, as we start to push out into the future, again, are a bit daunting. Remember, we took, remember, [00:19:00] there was a point that Prezo, That we talked about, which was, you know, running toward hard things run toward difficult things. And if it doesn't have some aspiration or ambition, which is outside of you, and it's going to serve the world better.
Rupert Bryce: And it's going to serve you better. It's usually because you want to avoid that. The daunting nature or the uncomfortable nature of moving towards something which is a bit hard, but if you're going to move towards something hard, you've got to overcome that it's going to be harder before it gets better or easier, and some of us don't want to move through that difficulty.
Rupert Bryce: And therefore we sort of safe and stuck and there in place.
Chris Hughes: Oh, there's so much reward to come from discomfort, isn't it? I think as humans, we're naturally, we naturally gravitate towards being comfortable. I've actually just read an amazing book by Paul Taylor, which is called Death by Comfort. And [00:20:00] this is talking about the physiology of the human body and exercise and everything else.
Chris Hughes: And how we, we've got air conditioning, but you can relate it to the psychology side of it as well. Couldn't you? Like we, Anything I think of, anything in my career that I've done where I stepped outside my comfort zone, they were always such rewarding experiences. And that was something that resonated with me about your talk.
Chris Hughes: It was move towards discomfort and it's not something that comes naturally. Like it's something that it's, it is, it's fearful, isn't it?
Rupert Bryce: Yeah, it's, yeah, there is some trepidation, but it's good trepidation. There's some worry, some discomfort. something that's daunting there, but on the other side of daunting is something much more fulfilling.
Rupert Bryce: But, and it's a real leap of faith. You've got to suspend those fears and explore what's on the other side of that by doing hard things, running toward discomfort, move through those passages, of challenge. And then you build up your [00:21:00] willpower and you build up that part of your brain, the anterior mid cingulate cortex, the AMCC part of your brain.
Rupert Bryce: And once you can build that up, you'll actually be better at all things that are hard. Anything that's a bit daunting or challenging or stressful, that, that's good stress. It's good discomfort. And as you run toward it, you get better and better at it. Yeah, I love that. But look, that that's one of many workouts.
Rupert Bryce: But the number one mechanism is understanding why and where, if you know what I mean by downward and backward, that we've got to work through first, to get to neutral and then start moving toward these things, which again, they're a leap of faith, they're uncomfortable, There are things that are point in times that you've got to move through.
Rupert Bryce: And so when you know, when you've got the perspective and elevation set around goals and values that you deeply believe in, you can endure that point in time. And we know from research, [00:22:00] people can endure the most challenging point in time, difficulties. They can move through them to, to the other side of reality.
Rupert Bryce: What's good on the other side there, and it's something much more deeply fulfilling.
Chris Hughes: Are there set questions you would recommend people ask themselves if they're looking back or down?
Rupert Bryce: Well, yeah, so there's two sort of sets of questions. One is the internalized set of questions, which is Who am I now? And where does that come from?
Rupert Bryce: And Who am I yet to become? What's possible for me? The other question that I remember that I've asked many times is really about if you've got some of that imposter, what would I do if I knew there was no barriers, there were no limitations? And in psychology, that's called the magic question. If you were to be doing it, what would you be doing?
Rupert Bryce: And therefore, what would that feel like? Okay, therefore, what actions do you need to take? personal responsibility. Who am I now? Who am I yet to become? What's possible for [00:23:00] me? What would I do if I could remove those barriers just temporarily? Do I even know what those barriers are around belief, around confidence, around imposter, around doubt?
Rupert Bryce: If you know what they are, You can just push them aside temporarily and start to ask those questions. So there's a personal set of questions about you and your growth. And then there's a set of questions which are linked into sports psychology and performance that we know about, setting goals, smart goals, understanding your values and moving toward those values.
Rupert Bryce: They're easier to attain. When you set smart goals, They're much, much more effective and sustainable. And the attainment of that goal is much clearer if you've got a clear understanding of your values, what's really important to you and what's purposeful about that SMART goal.
Chris Hughes: Rupert, of all the high performers that you've worked with at that executive level, are there any key sort of common traits that [00:24:00] you tend to see?
Rupert Bryce: Definitely. Definitely. The one that keeps coming up over and over is measurably in personally profiling called openness to experience. Let's talk much more about curiosity. When I think about those who succeed, they've got this. Interest in learning, learning about themselves and being curious about what's possible.
Rupert Bryce: So it's curiosity, it's future focused, it's growth orientation, there's stuff that's, well, sayings, they've got some research to them, emotional agility, you might have heard of that, borrowed from Susan David, having some emotional flex or agility. In working through setbacks, seeing them as temporary, seeing them as a point in time, seeing them as, how do I get perspective and elevation on that temporary setback?
Rupert Bryce: That, that's a mindset or a capability that I see over and over is flexibility and curiosity.
Chris Hughes: Yeah, but there's
Rupert Bryce: probably many others, but they're [00:25:00] the ones that, as I go, what really differentiates the high performers, you're going to have some thinking flexibility in there as well, which is if you're thinking it's this, or you're feeling it's this, or you're believing it's this, we've got to be open to curious about what else is possible and use either a scientific method, let's go forth and test both and see which one's the best.
Rupert Bryce: Or just some flexibility when new and better ideas come forth, or you've tried something and it hasn't worked. You could have some flexibility. Some cognitive or thinking flexibility as much as emotional flexibility or agility for you to keep moving toward things that are uncomfortable.
Chris Hughes: It's fascinating that you've just said that.
Chris Hughes: I've read a blog just on the weekend and it was talking about the common traits of smart billionaires. And so they were talking about Bill Gates, Warren Buffett. The another gentleman that slipped my mind, the two traits they talked about were curiosity. So it was that, that they were always wanting to learn off the most interesting person in the room.
Chris Hughes: They're [00:26:00] always asking questions. Bill Gates reads five books a week. Like it's just this thirst for knowledge and always wanting to learn. And it was about mental adaptability to be able to take whatever knowledge that they've just learned and implement that, that, that the ability to pivot quickly and move.
Chris Hughes: So that's fascinating. Yeah. I'm getting
Rupert Bryce: stuck or dogmatic. Yeah. Yeah. That's a big part of it.
Chris Hughes: Yeah. So that if anyone's aspiring to that higher level, then working on that ability to, you know, not have a fixed mindset and certainly have a more growth mindset attitude and to always be learning, which I think most health professionals would be in that space.
Chris Hughes: Rupert, are there any other questions that we should be asking ourselves to reach that high performance level?
Rupert Bryce: Yeah, one of the questions I was thinking about before as you were asking that was more about the stories that you're telling yourself. And examining those stories from maybe not pushing against it, but just opening it up to if I'm telling myself that story, or if I had that repeat [00:27:00] internal dialogue, what else might be true for us?
Rupert Bryce: What else might be true for me? And instead of going, Oh, I don't want to believe that or that's getting in my way or getting down on yourself or not tuning into the negative emotions associated with some of the frustrations. What That's a question, it's a gentle question of possibility and of what's next.
Rupert Bryce: A little bit like who am I now, who am I yet to become, is what is that story, what else could be true, and how might I be wrong? If you're ready for a bit more of a challenge, how might I be wrong? And it's got might in it. So those things are just about unpacking the, the limitations of what's going on for you now, but also they're a gentle opening up of what's next and what's possible for you.
Rupert Bryce: Who am I yet to become? What else might be true? What's possible here? They, they have a lot of acceptance in them in terms of where you are now, but also where you want to get to.
Chris Hughes: I like the how might I be [00:28:00] wrong? Cause I think thinking of my own situation is that. I have all these ideas and I, I only think about the positive of those ideas, whereas really, if you're planning for the future, you need to problem solve worst case and best case.
Rupert Bryce: Yeah.
Chris Hughes: So I love that question of what could go wrong.
Rupert Bryce: Yeah, just a bit of what I'm, what might be, what do I need to sort of unpack there in terms of if I'm believing this or if I've inherited this or if I keep telling myself this, what else might be true here? That's a much more gentle way of examining that.
Rupert Bryce: What else is true? What else is possible? Or what's another story I could put to this? Because there's always sort of stories. And in fact, we, when we get into really precious settings, I find Managers and executives in workplaces are pitching stories inside their head, which is about the sort of the villain or the thing that someone has done wrong, and they start to externalize or they start to internalize in very negative ways or unhelpful ways.[00:29:00]
Rupert Bryce: And when there's a villain, therefore, you're usually the hero in that story. And so when you think about the unpacking of that story, are you pitching them as the villain so you can pitch yourself as the hero? That's one that I mean in terms of what else could be true here or what am I currently believing and how is it suiting me or how is it convenient for me to pitch them as the villain or the problem in this situation because facing into the radical responsibility required to move toward the discomfort of a better conversation Of a little bit of conflict resolution or something challenging there.
Rupert Bryce: It's easier for us to go. You're the problem and I'm the solution here. Or so sometimes those really simple stories need a bit more nuance to them a bit more opening up in terms of what am I believing what else could be true or how could I be wrong? And 1.
Chris Hughes: But I'm laughing [00:30:00] because I, everything you've just described, I sort of have thought about my kids and I, that's, it's a skill I've developed as, as being a parent because my kids take on that persona and I naturally would do it as well as a, as an adult, but I hear my kids, it's always they're the hero and their brother or sisters, the villain, as I'm trying to then coach them to think differently.
Chris Hughes: I need to be doing that myself. Because I would be doing the exact same. So it's, uh, yeah, fascinating to hear you talk about that.
Rupert Bryce: Yeah, it's convenient. It's expedient. It's, as we were saying before, your brain's looking for shortcuts. It's got an effort minimizing thing. And when you're under pressure, or when the, when your siblings kick you in the shins.
Rupert Bryce: We're looking to rapidly explain that and sometimes it's not, we don't want to take that on. We don't want to see our part in that story. We just want to go, you're the, whatever it is, whatever you want to label them. We characterize people for our convenience.
Chris Hughes: Yeah. [00:31:00] Yeah. Something I love working with you, Rupert, a couple of years ago is that all of these questions that we go through are good and well, but Unless you have a designated coach or time set aside to sit and ask those questions, we just don't do it, do we?
Chris Hughes: As we've had this conversation, these all sound like simple questions. I say, that makes sense, I should just do that. But the reality is, you don't do it unless You sit forced to think about it. So I really took a lot out of our sessions together. Like it was so valuable and it was, I'd finished those sessions and I'm going to just make so much sense to do this sort of stuff, but I'd never do it.
Chris Hughes: I wouldn't do it unless I had been paired up with you and we'd gone through that process. I can't advocate enough, anyone listening to this, if you're looking to work with a performance coach, we'll certainly be putting Rupert's details below if Rupert's got room, that is. Yeah, yeah, sure.
Rupert Bryce: Yes. Thank you.
Rupert Bryce: Appreciate it.
Chris Hughes: But yeah, like, it's true, isn't it? It's [00:32:00] if you, that old adage of if you pay attention, yes, you may be good enough to put time in your calendar to just block off and sit and ask these questions. And if you're that person that can do it, great. But I do think it's something that we need to really get an employee and a performance coach to put us through these processes.
Rupert Bryce: Yes, and to gently hold a space for you to be uncomfortable at times, just temporarily. As you move through that, you're held and guided and supported to do that. At some stage, it's got to move to accountability and challenge and a little bit of developmental discomfort. But as you get used to working with someone, you get better and better at that.
Rupert Bryce: But yeah, those that are very, Disciplined and stoic and put it in their diary and do that. I've often talked about the idea of sticking your diary and doing that, even if it's 15 minutes a week. If it's a, whatever that is, 160th of your week. If you can't cut out 15 minutes for that, yes, you could use more disciplined practices.
Rupert Bryce: But one idea that I often [00:33:00] talk to busy managers and executives about is, do that or do nothing else. Just sit there and meditate, contemplate, whatever. But you can't go on your phone, you can't do anything else. If you choose not to do that. Ask yourself those questions, trying to sit there and go, why not?
Rupert Bryce: And typically you will then start to do whatever that activity is that you've set out for yourself. Yeah, because people don't like to sit still and do nothing. So they end up doing it. But yeah, you want to move that from the discipline, the support. Sort of being held, being accountable into a rhythm of consistency.
Rupert Bryce: And then you get better and better at that. And again, you grow that willpower, uh, part of your brain, and it's just easier and easier for you to do that and achieve those things, which are ambitious and at times uncomfortable.
Chris Hughes: Yeah, exactly. I like that. It's like anything, it's like a sport. You're only going to get better by practice, but again, probably reflecting on my own experiences that I, anything in that mental space is this.
Chris Hughes: Push to the [00:34:00] side because it's like physical. Yes. I can train. I can go and exercise, but the mental stuff, I think, Oh, it'll be okay. It'll be okay. I really liked that. That I'm someone that is probably best off just employing a performance and coach to places on a regular basis. Rupert May, thank you so much for your time.
Chris Hughes: We could talk forever in a day about this stuff, but hopefully Like anyone listening to this, there's enough information here for you to move the needle and increase your performance. I think it's certainly avoiding our industries, particularly around that imposter syndrome, those self limiting beliefs, um, that will help them to work through that.
Chris Hughes: Um, we will put your contact details below. Is there anything in particular in the notes or something you, that you might want people to maybe read some of your information that we can put in?
Rupert Bryce: I know very happy for just a link to the website perform. com. au pretty simple website address there for them to be able to find go online have a look at what I do how I do it and yeah very appreciative of the [00:35:00] opportunity to connect with your audiences and talk to them more about that.
Rupert Bryce: So thanks Chris.
Chris Hughes: No not a problem mate it's it's great. When, when we connected it, I thought, Oh, this is a perfect match. And so thank you for giving up your time. Pleasure. Good to talk. Thanks Rupert. Do you find this podcast valuable? There may be other nutrition professionals out there will also. If you like, share and subscribe, it's going to help other nutrition professionals make an impact on the world, just like you.
Chris Hughes: Thanks.
